What free2play game are you currently hooked on?

murmelade@lemmy.ml to Patient Gamers@sh.itjust.works – 48 points –

I know older titles are usually the topic in this community but a lot of the popular f2p games are getting pretty old now too, and if you're like me you've been curious about some of them and even pleasantly surprised now and again.

There are many examples like League of Legends, Apex Legends, Raid: Shadow Legends etc and I usually get hooked on one and play it for some months or more. I'm not really trying to get into the "business" side of things, I personally very rarely purchase anything but if you do that's absolutely fine too.

The current ones I play regularly:

  • PC - Enlisted - A WW2 shooter with vehicles like the Battlefield games. Same publisher and game engine as War Thunder and has been in open beta for over 2 years now. Kinda janky still but regularly updated and enjoyable.
  • Android - CUE cards universe everything (I forget exactly lol) - Fun deck builder but very grindy if you don't buy shit. Pretty unique concept for a deck builder what I've come across. Short games too so good for a smoke break or the bus or whatever.

So, what do you play?

59

Currently two:

War Thunder - It has so many issues from the grind, to unadressed design issues (IE 10kg HE shells doing no damage on a direct hit), to balance issues including p2w vehicles. That said, under all the shit, theres a solid foundation, and no other game comes close to replicating it.

Super Auto Pets - Its an autobattler streamlined to the point where its the perfect casual game when I don't feel like anything else. It also doesn't have any of the normal f2p traps, and is monitized purely on cosmetics that can also be earned for free.

Edit: I guess Dota 2 counts too. I put a ton of time into that. I'm not a particularly good player, but its one of the best team-based games out there, so I enjoy playing it with friends.

Any time anyone ever says War Thunder all I can think of is people leaking military information on the game forums.

May or may not come back and edit with more links for the other times

Hey Super Auto Pets was pretty neat actually.

Warframe

Good old Space Ninjas.

Its not a perfect game but its a great power fantasy

A great power fantasy for the Grineer when I hit Steel Path lmao.

Maan, I remember hitting a WALL when I decided to take on SP earth with just excalibur, a braton, a lato, and a skana as a challenge. That challenge ended definitively when I hit an interception mission.

Really more space wizards these days, but I do like to sneak around in a spy mission from time to time...

Warframe ever since 2012!

hell yeah warframe. I accidentally spent all of my arcane juice on steel path arcanes instead of eidolon arcanes in the sanctum, so I'm taking a break until the despair leaves my body, but I love that game

PC - Path of Exile - This is an ARPG similar to Diablo 2. It has very well defined terms (outside of a few edge cases) that help guide your build creation. Lots of community support. They release a new league with content and updates every 3-4 months. While F2P, stash tabs are a useful purchase if you enjoy it long-term. I've been playing since 1.0 (over 10 years ago now)

Android - Idle Obelisk Miner - There is some initial manual mining, but then you'll unlock drones and bombs for mining. It's better as a screen-on idler, but can be played screen off, but much slower. In terms of an idler, I feel the pacing is done very well. (30 days of play time in game as of now)

If you mean free-to-play in the sense of a commercial game that one can play without payment, but where it is supported by data-mining or in-app-purchases or ads, I can only off-the-cuff recall playing a few games in that category:

  • World of Warships. I played one round against humans.

  • Defense of the Ancients 2. I played one round against human players and some time against the computer.

  • Fallout Shelter. I didn't like it much, though I do like the mainline Fallout series.

  • I remember some gamebook game on Android that showed ads at the bottom.

I'm not playing any of those currently. Broadly-speaking, I don't like the model. I'd rather just pay up front.

If you're talking about free-to-play-with-the-aim-of-selling-you-on-a-larger-game, I've played plenty of those -- in the 1990s, shareware and demos were a common way to promote a game. But they've kind of fallen out of favor in terms of DLC. I don't think I've played any of those for a while.

If you're talking about entirely free games, then I've played plenty of those. I think the two that I'm currently playing off-and-on, both open-source, would be:

I recently picked up Crossout again when browsing free games on xbox. The Battle Bots x Lego kinda thing works for me, sadly it's very pay to win so you hit a certain level and then the fun is gone.

I have put some 1400 hours into Rocket League, even though I've been playing it since it wasn't free. Easy to learn, impossible to master. Sadly the community is super super toxic, so it's more fun if you have a friend or two to play with.

Warframe and Lotro are terminal illnesses for me. I'm never done playing them. It's an endless cycle of dressing up a hobbit in Middle Earth or dressing up a Warframe in space.

Predecessor is the best MOBA I've ever played, and it's not even out of early access yet. Right now just grinding Brawl because it's braindead action but the normal gamemode is also good.

I don't remember when Alto's Odyssey became free to play on Android, but it's honestly such an amazing game. Its prequel is pretty nice too, but I like this one better.

I used to be addicted to Super Starfish too. I'm even pretty close to completing it, but just never had my chance to do so because... reasons. I would love to see this game on the Nintendo DS.

I played the original Sonic trilogy. It was fine, I guess.

The Dadish series was super annoying and very infuriating despite looking like something a child could complete in one sitting.

Bean Dreams was absolutely phenomenal, though. I loved every second of it. Why on earth did they have to take it down from app stores???

I played Okay. It was okay.

Bart Bonte's "color" series of games are also pretty fun to play through. You actually can finish all of them in one sitting if you're brainy enough to do so. I did. "Black" was my favorite, since you get a glimpse of the Belgian flag at the end (Bart is Belgian after all).

I even played Goat Simulator on mobile (not the sequel, the original). For some reason I enjoyed that one the most despite how very obviously limited the mobile version is.

Conclusion: I like very niche categories of mobile games.

Bart Bonte's games are really satisfying. The only one I didn't personally care for as much is Sugar Game, but all of the colors are fun little puzzle games.

I especially remember playing the Flash version of Sugar Game a while back, it was my earliest memory of that guy. But yeah, that game specifically wasn't my favorite, but it was still pretty nice especially with the calm soundtrack that plays in the levels.

Thinking about getting back into Crossfire. That was a super fun time during high school with a good friend about 15 years ago. Maybe it's just the nostalgia but I remember some quite fun modes like Ghosts.

Warframe and Warthunder. Lot of war happening, now that I think about it.

I'm starting to get a bit burnt out on Warthunder, though.

Is warframe fun?

I think, so yeah. Warframe tends to polarize people- a lot of the time people either enjoy it a lot or hate it a lot and it just depends on your preferences. I think it's because of how grindy it is while it simultaneously has a very ridiculous amount of depth. That's a downside to a lot of people, but it's kinda entirely why I play the game.

The most important thing I can suggest is that when you have questions, ask someone. Either a friend that's knowledgeable, youtube, or hell just ask in Q&A chat. Don't just try to figure it out- that's probably not going to end well. The new player experience is miles better than when I started, but it's still kinda rocky. Things aren't explained incredibly well.

If you try it and end up having questions feel free to toss me a DM- I'm happy to help a new player out however I can.

I've been playing Palia. It's a chill MMO focused on resource gathering, NPC quests, and crafting.

Recently got back into Dota 2. It's still incredibly good!

Super Auto Pets and Bloons TD Battles 2

I have not come back to it in awhile, but Mobile Legends bang bang. It's a tower rush game (league of legends knock off) that is free to play, with plenty to buy for those that want. Besides some of the cosmetic stuff (skins and stuff) anything can be gotten through grinding.

It's 5 on 5 tower rush, with lots of different characters. I had gotten quite familiar with playing a few, and for awhile really knew a bit about playing against most of the regularly seen characters.

Nowadays I get the urge every few months, update app, play for a week or two then put it down.

Sim city build it also stays on my phone, as it is a peaceful and colorful game. Easy to play for 10 minutes or go in and out of on a long ride.

World of Tanks was the last I was hooked on but burnt out and haven't played it in forever.

I never could get into World of Tanks. It always seemed interesting but didn't grab me.

I gotta get back into World Of Warships tho that game is neat.

I much preferred the older versions of WoT them the current version which is more arcade first person shooter like.

I've played a bunch of warships also.

I play League of Legends and a couple gacha games all F2P. Genshin, Snowbreak, and Aether Gazer. Wuthering Waves just came out so time will tell if it stays in my rotation or not.

Jesus how do today keep up with the FOMO live service high engagement driven model that each of them ask for you

Right I'm actually kinda addicted so I like make time for my "dailies". Usually like an hour a day -ish. Don't think I've missed a day for around 250 days now. I know I'd probably enjoy it more if I played story games or something but it is nice to just turn off my brain for an hour. Kinda feels like how my parents would brain-off watch TV for hours.

Also I have an Google sheet with checkmarks to make sure I do everything every day so I spend the least amount of time on each game rather than thinking.

The only mobile f2p game I've played in months is Super Snail. Slow burn gatcha idle rpg.

DISCLAIMER: The following is a subjective opinion, your mileage may vary

Wuthering Waves hit me blindsided. I went in with low expectations since Tower of Fantasy was so incompetently made (just IMO, no offense), but this game is easily a top 5 anime action RPG from what I‘ve played among the likes of Ni no Kuni II, Code Vein, and Genshin.

The combat has more skill expression (perfect dodges, counterattacks to break the enemy) than Genshin, and the story is more mature (human sacrifices for example), both of which I welcome. It has barely launched, has technical issues (stutters a plenty, no inverted camera option, etc.), and other things I could nag about (dudes too edgy, girls too uninspired), but the animations, graphics, and story presentation are surprisingly good and top notch as far as gachas go. I enjoy the story more than Genshin‘s too.

I recommend to give it a shot. In its current state it‘s already super fun even with its shortcomings. If this was a singleplayer game on Steam, I‘d buy it for 40 bucks, it‘s that good lol

Gumballs and Dungeons is a fun roguelike gacha. The main game loop is picking a Gumball which have different stats and mechanics and diving a Dungeon which has different enemies and mechanics. So you want to synergize your gumball with your strategy for a particular dungeon. Each floor of a dungeon is a 6x5 tile map and you flip the tiles looking for the down exit. There’s a boss every so many floors and just try to go a deep as you can. At the end of the run you keep some of the stuff you collected to unlock new dungeons and gumballs.

Another Eden is a gacha RPG from the writer and composer of sony enix dream team; chrono series, xeno series, final fantasy. There is so much content there and a ton of crossovers with other franchises. The map movement is done really well here for a mobile targeted rpg, it’s slightly elevated from a side scroll perspective and you mostly move horizontally in lanes with vertical connections here and there to switch between lanes. The writing is great, the music is great, the battle mechanics can get really deep.

Risk.

Not sure why though. I dislike Hasbro, the game isn't particularly exciting, and I don't like the monetization, but it's relaxing for me. I haven't spent a dime and I only play for 15-20 min/day, but I like it for some reason.

Likewise with Magic: The Gathering Arena. I don't play as much recently, but I do like it.

Most of my time is spent playing older AAAs and indie games though.

Honkai Star Rail just passed the one-year mark and I'm massively impressed with it. I don't often play games on mobile and this is only the second gacha I've put significant time into (the first being Final Fantasy Record Keeper). I honestly didn't know my four year old, not-flagship phone could run something like this. I guess there's a reason Hoyo has enough money to buy a small country.

The battle system is crazy good. Turn based without rounds is my favorite RPG battle system, and this might be the best version of it I've seen. The presentation's great. The story and the writing is a little weird.

I wish it didn't throw a million currencies and play modes at me, but I guess that's the genre (or just F2P in general these days). Looking forward to when I can sort all that stuff out in my head so I'm not wasting time on it when I get a chance to open it.

https://www.kartkrew.org/index.html

Dr. Robotnik’s Ring Racers. A Sonic fan game that's similar to Mario Kart. It's kinda drawn me in and it's very technical.

In terms of multiplayer games to play with friends on Discord; been playing a lot of Apex Legends recently. Sadly I suck at aiming.

I used to be addicted to PlanetSide 2. Great game but it really needs a rewite or a 3rd installment. Player numbers are low and the game feels dated but it's still so fun to me if you can find a coherent platoon

Currently playing The Finals. Quite nice with the destruction of everything.

Here's a really good browser game that should last you a good few hours

https://www.kongregate.com/games/innocuousgames/amorphous

Otherwise I guess I still play some Heroes of the Storm for old times' sake. I really, really don't like Blizzard as a company anymore, but the game is in maintenance and is basically just coasting out the last of the playerbase before it shuts down, so hopefully I'm not helping them succeed while I enjoy the game for its last few years.

would not say hooked but I have been messing around on isleward.

I finally bit the bullet for a friend and got into Warzone, the free to play call of duty mode. And honestly, I've become super into it as someone who previously has not enjoyed battle royale games very much. I'm always watching the new best loadout guides, keeping up with a YouTuber even, and thinking of new playstyle ideas to try after getting home from work. I haven't been this into a game since when I was a teenager playing counter strike.